


We Can Get Better

by inkvoices



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bisexual Character, Bondage, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, Hypervigilance, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Oral Sex, Threesome - F/M/M, full body hug as a form of, making your own shit work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 03:24:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12050286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/pseuds/inkvoices
Summary: Hypervigilance is kicking in.  Clint wishes he could sleep for a week, but he won’t even manage a full night.  He’s gonna be up each time something moves in his peripheral vision.  He’s already turned the stupid hearing aids up to the max.  He’ll be checking the locks and the boarded up window every hour probably.Clint thought that everyone left after the Battle of Bed-Stuy, but Natasha's still here and that means the chances of him sleeping tonight have just improved dramatically.





	We Can Get Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [musicspeakstoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicspeakstoo/gifts).



> Title is from _Get Better_ by Frank Turner, now permanently associated with Fraction  & Aja & Team's _Hawkeye_ for me thanks to [this vid](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10715574). Fic takes place between Clint being in a hospital gown and Clint shooting with Kate at the end of #22. Clint and Kate are the comics versions of themselves, Natasha and Bucky are possibly more MCU or AU. Beta read by CloudAtlas, who knows how last minute I am at finishing, and still offers to beta read for me, and makes everything better.
> 
> Happy friends fest, musicspeakstoo!

Kate is the last to leave. Clint leans his uninjured shoulder against the door to hold it open for her and pretends that his aches aren’t screaming at him to sit down whilst she hovers in his doorway, spending ten minutes explaining that she needs to check on the state of her own apartment because she hasn’t been there in ages, and it’s late, and she’s finished sweeping up the broken window glass from his floor, so she’s gonna go. Any minute now.

“So.” She looks him over from the tips of the bruised toes sticking out of the bottom of the bandages mummifying his right leg to the plaster stuck across his nose and he rolls his eyes at the inspection. “I’m gonna take Lucky for tonight.”

As if they have a timeshare on the damn dog or something. He’d point out that he's the one that keeps paying the vet bills, but it’s also his fault that Lucky keeps getting hurt.

Hearing his name, Lucky ambles over and presses his nose against the back of Kate’s knee. She bends to scritch the top of his head and he thumps his tail against the floor a couple of times, loving the fuss.

“Again?” Clint says and Kate glares at him.

It’s a joke. Okay, not a very good one, but it's been a long day. 

And he's maybe a little jealous. The only time anyone seems to touch him these days is when they're fixing him up and any time he tries to start something it always seems to end in sex, and then people _expect_ things. Kate’s the exception, but she hasn't been here and now it’s Lucky getting all the attention and looking blissed out.

“He’ll flop on top of you when you're sleeping, or you’ll trip over him or something, and neither of you can cope with that right now,” Kate says.

She’s not entirely wrong, although he thinks part of her motivation is also that she’s gotten used to having a furry sidekick. 

He wouldn't injure Lucky, but his home’s just been under attack and hypervigilance is kicking in. He wishes he could sleep for a week, but he won’t even manage a full night. He’s gonna be up each time something moves in his peripheral vision. He’s already turned the stupid hearing aids up to the max. He’ll be checking the locks and the boarded up window every hour probably.

Lucky doesn't need to put up with that shit. Even if the company would be nice and might help him manage a nap at the least.

“Or you could stay.”

He makes the offer because that's what he’d usually do. Situation normal.

“I’ll be back tomorrow.” Kate pauses, opens her mouth as if to say something else, turns it into a sigh instead, and then decides to get on with it. “Look, I tried to warn you the last time your lady tribe descended on you, but then tracksuits happened and I guess I still owe you one. So, fair warning: I know you think they’ve all gone, but I let the Black Widow back in earlier. Is that okay, or do you need me to stay?”

Clint blinks a few times and tries to process that.

“Just say the word, Hawkeye,” Kate says, watching him.

He should probably say it depends whether Natasha is here to help him or yell at him, but either way it's _Natasha_ and that means the chances of him sleeping tonight have just improved dramatically.

“Yeah. No, I mean, that's okay.”

“Okay then.” 

Kate shakes her head at him, smiles, and then walks away. Again. With his dog. Again. But it's _Kate_ , and she came back, and she helped him get out of the hospital earlier against medical advice, so of course she’s already forgiven.

 

“Thought we got rid of all the Russians,” Clint says when he finally makes it up the stairs to his bedroom, crutch digging a bruise into his armpit and sweat uncomfortable on the back of his neck. It would have been easier to just collapse on the couch and sleep there, but then he’d definitely get yelled at. And he likes his bed.

Natasha, currently occupying the left-hand side of it, raises an eyebrow. 

“The lock’s broken on the roof door,” she informs him, which really doesn’t explain what she’s doing here.

It does mean that Natasha has done a full building check, which means that Clint doesn't have to. He wasn't looking forward to a tour of the building when he can barely put any weight on one leg and his head feels like Thor is crashing around inside his skull, complete with hammer and booming voice. Especially considering the state of the place, with the remains of the barricade they haven't finished clearing yet clogging up the stairway, the strategic holes in the floor (or ceiling, depending on where you’re standing), the barbecue coals littering the roof and front steps, and all the other debris from the Battle of Bed-Stuy. The way his brain is now it would have insisted on it though, except there's not a bit of him that doesn't trust Natasha to have done as good a job as he would, better even.

She’s also left his pain meds and a glass of water by his side of the bed and folded the duvet back. Kind of like being in a fancy hotel, only with drugs instead of chocolates on the pillow.

“Take those,” she orders, before rolling over and putting her back to him so that he doesn't feel like he's being watched.

And he can. Because he can be drugged up and sleep if Natasha is here.

Kate is excellent for napping around because he absolutely knows that she has his back, but he needs to be able to instantly turn around and watch her back in return, not be a useless, dependent mess. It’s a responsibility thing that he just can’t shake. Taking drugs when Kate’s there makes him panicky. Bobbi’s seen him at his worst, drugs and all, but he's not her responsibility anymore, or at least he's trying not to be. Jess… They’ve never slept together, not literally or in the euphemism sense of the word, so that'd just be awkward.

With Natasha things are never awkward unless she wants them to be.

Clint takes the pills, yanks the hospital gown off leaving him just in boxers, and puts the crutch on the floor, within easy reach but just under the bed where he won't trip over it. He can't bring himself to take the hearing aids out, even though he knows it’ll make his headache worse by the morning, but he does manage to dial them down a notch.

When he lies down Natasha shifts until her back is pressed firmly against his, like so many times on missions and after. They bump butts, but it turns out that she's wearing a pair of his boxers too - which means sex isn’t on the menu and Clint can just relax and enjoy all that lovely warm skin soothing his aches. He read a thing about touch improving healing once and, in rare moments like these, he believes it.

“Go to sleep,” she says, and Clint does.

He wakes up a couple of times in the night. They don’t talk. Natasha just gets up and checks all of the locks and the boarded up window so that he doesn’t have to, loaning him the knife from under her pillow that he grips tight while he’s waiting for her to come back. 

 

The hypervigilance doesn't go away, but neither does Natasha. She eats his cereal in the mornings, disappears for the day, and then reappears in the evenings with something for them to contribute to the rooftop potluck; a pack of beer, burger buns, Doritos. 

Kate’s a fan because she uses it as an excuse to keep taking Lucky back to hers at night. Also, she really likes Doritos.

Clint knows it isn’t Avenger’s business, but he doesn’t ask what she gets up to whilst he spends his time stumbling around the building helping to clean up as much as his neighbours - tenants - will let him. Aimee paints a broom purple to encourage him to stick to sweeping. He never does find out if it’s because she thinks he’s rubbish at everything else or if he worried her too much when he bled through some of his bandages after trying to help move her stuff out of the barricade. 

They have a policy of not interfering in each other’s messes. Or rather Natasha has a policy of not interfering in Clint’s messes and Clint doesn't even pretend that he can keep up when Natasha gets embroiled in espionage. He has fond memories of a three month road trip they took once to deal with a mess that Clint still blames on Barney. Natasha does not, so: policy. (Neither does several state police departments, the FBI, and SHIELD. Apparently the pair of them going off grid together at any point is now a cause for national concern.)

She still showed up for the aftermath of his recent screw-up though. Earlier really, if he counts her digging up the dirt on Penny. They all did, Clint’s people. Kate came back, and Barney did good even if he followed it with being Barney, and Bobbi, Jess, all his neighbour-tenant people. He’d get poetic about it, but Natasha keeps making him take his meds so he might be a little high on painkillers and he’s keeping his mouth shut. Just. It felt good, the getting help thing.

Then a week later she dumps her cereal bowl in the sink, tells him not to wait up because she has a mission, and kisses him goodbye. Just a closed-mouth press of lips against lips, there and gone in a second.

Clint is as inarticulate as can be expected.

Natasha sighs rather than explaining whatever it is she’s worked out with her scary spycraft people skills and tells him to speak to Jess.

“I don’t… There’s not really a me and Jess,” Clint says.

“Does she know that?” is what Natasha leaves him with.

Maybe the adult thing to do would be to get over himself and work out how to have an actual relationship, not even necessarily with Jess, but the idea fills him with dread. He couldn't make it work with Bobbi and he ended up hurting her. His parents were the ‘how not to do it’ kind of role models. Clint couldn’t even manage the mentor-sibling thing he has going on with Kate without driving her away.

And yes, he’s talked about all of this with Jess; he owed her that. They talked about other things too and Jess decided that, for now, they should just work on being friends.

Letting Natasha take over, letting her work out what he needs without him even having to say anything, is easy and comfortable and familiar. Maybe it makes him a bad person, or lazy, or whatever, but if Clint has learned anything recently it’s that sometimes it’s okay to hold your hands up and say when you just can’t manage to do a thing, when you need someone else to carry the weight for a while.

He arms himself with his broom and heads out to find somewhere he can be useful and not have to think for a bit.

 

“Thought we got rid of all the Russians,” Clint says when he walks into his apartment and finds the Winter Soldier eating pizza on his couch. It was a good line; it’s worth recycling.

Barnes just gives him the middle finger with the hand that isn't holding a ginormous slice of Meat Lovers’ Special. 

“Lock was broken on your roof door,” he says when he's finished chewing. “Bought you a new one and got it fixed.”

Which doesn't explain why he's _in Clint’s apartment_ apart from how it kinda does, because if Barnes has done a full building check then: “Nat sent you to be my babysitter. Or you’re just that paranoid.”

“They really are out to get me,” Barnes says solemnly and holds out the pizza box. “Also Natasha gave me a key.”

“For futz sake. I didn't give _her_ a key. I don't just hand keys out.”

Clint consoles himself by taking the largest slice left and flops onto the couch next to him. Barnes doesn’t seem bothered by the close proximity other than to move the remaining pizza out of Clint’s reach.

“No, you just invite the mob ‘round. We’re gonna have to ban you from spending time with Steve; seems like his stupid is catching.”

“Shut up, Barnes.” He ducks his head, uncomfortable with the comparison even when wrapped up in an insult. “If it is Barnes? What name are you going by this week?” 

Clint aims for teasing, but actually he’s curious. 

“Really, Hawkguy?”

“Fine.” Clint wipes the grease off his fingers on his sweatpants, lifts his t-shirt a little to scratch under the edge of the bandages around his ribs, and glances over to see if there’s any food left, which is a dumb thing to hope for when eating with a super soldier. “I see you’ve met the neighbours, _James_ ,” he tries, and that makes him twitch, so ha, Clint is keeping it.

“Well, I met Kate.” 

James folds the empty pizza box up, using his metal hand to force it to squish smaller than Clint could ever manage, and throws it across the room into the bin. Clint refuses to be impressed. Then he picks up the remote and starts messing with it, frowning when nothing happens.

“Hey, do you have Cat Burglars? That new Dog Cops spin off?”

Clint rubs the back of his neck and sighs in defeat. “Why are you here, man? Because you really don’t need to be.”

James keeps his eyes on the remote, removing the back and checking the batteries. Spoiler: there’s nothing wrong with the batteries.

“I needed an excuse to stay somewhere in New York that doesn’t have Stark in it?”

Clint knows the drama of fighting against Stark’s insistence on everyone living in the Avengers frat house – or whatever; Clint never went to college – but he’s sure James could have found a better excuse than babysitting Clint. (Also, Clint would like to point out that he won that fight.)

“Stark came over to fix my DVR,” Clint says, putting his feet up on the coffee table.

“Yeah?”

“He offered to buy me a new one.”

“Well I gotta tell you,” James says, giving up on the remote, “it ain’t working.”

“Yeah, well, I used the cables to tie a guy up.” He shrugs, which hurts but everything hurts right now no matter what he does and it’s worth it for the look on James’ face. He tries to keep his own expression casual no-big-deal, but it cracks into a grin. “You gotta make your own shit work for you, y’know?”

“Yeah. Guess so.” James rubs a hand across his mouth to hide a grin of his own, but Clint still spots it. “Just a shame you couldn’t make the DVR work too while you were at it.”

 

As company goes, James Barnes isn’t the worst. He buys new cables and they spend an afternoon figuring out how to hook them up, with copious amounts of googling and James’ famous last words, “It’s not a bomb, how difficult could it be?” He gets new glass from somewhere and they spend another afternoon fixing Clint’s busted window. The third day they get started on the rest of the building and it turns out James is also really good with filling in and painting over bullet holes.

At which point James’ finds out how many stitches Clint’s ripped out trying to help out so far – probably from Aimee, the traitor - and he gets relegated to supervising, which apparently means watching and occasionally handing over brushes and tools.

“You’re good at this,” Clint says, sat on the floor with Lucky’s head in his lap, or rather on the thigh that wasn’t shot, and a can of white paint next to him. 

“I’ve lived in a lot of shitty apartments.”

“Are you saying my building is shitty?” 

James flicks paint at him and Clint laughs, leaning back against the wall. 

“I know it is,” he adds after a minute. “I’m bad at this.”

“Not the people part,” James says, and, “It’s just nice to fix things for a change.”

He moans about the frying pan not being non-stick, and Clint not owning a wok, and scrubs the oven until the whole apartment stinks of bleach. He insists on throwing out everything that’s past its use-by date, even the dried pasta. He finds Clint and Kate’s old targets, that weren't really missing so much as shoved behind the couch because Clint hadn’t wanted the reminder, and sets them up again at the far end of the apartment so he can throw the kitchen knives and complain that they're blunt. Although he won't let Clint have a go, because apparently knife throwing isn’t appropriate physical therapy.

Clint doesn't care, because he _cooks_. Breakfast now involves delightful things like pancakes and while they still spend pretty much every night eating on the roof, now Clint helps to carry up actual homemade food; chili, paella, samosas.

Kate asks sadly what happened to the Doritos and James tells her to buy her own.

He sleeps on the couch. 

Clint doesn't ask him to. Clint outright invites him to share the bed, but James turns him down mumbling about nightmares. So instead Clint starts inching closer during every episode of Cat Burglars, repeat of Dog Cops, and Disney movie that they watch, but James – who unsubtly switches the subtitles on every time in his quest to try and get Clint to take a break from wearing the hearing aids – seems to be oblivious to Clint slowly encroaching on his space. Super soldiers run warm, Clint associates couch lounging with physical contact, and after finally getting a regular dose from Natasha his body remembers what it's been missing. He’s not asking for a hug, as good as that would be; he just wants to lean on someone, dammit. 

Also, Nat sent him to Clint; she knows what this man looks like and there’s no way she’d criticise him for wanting to fall asleep with those abs as a pillow. She might criticise him for how slow he’s being about it, but the guy’s bound to have a lot of baggage and Clint’s gonna be careful about that.

Even if it means he wakes up in the middle of the night more times than he did when he had Natasha, heart pounding and breath ragged in his throat. But every time he does, he hears James’ voice from below - nice and clear so the hearing aids can easily pick it up - telling him that he's done all of the checks, and it's all okay, and about this recipe he read online that he's gonna try tomorrow. He always knows; there’s no secrets sharing a loft apartment with a guy with enhanced hearing. 

It works. Mostly. Clint’s brain accepts that even his hypervigilance can't compete with the Winter Soldier’s (not undeserved) paranoia and James has survived this long; he knows how to do a damn perimeter check.

He still misses having someone at his back though.

 

Then there’s the night Clint wakes up and doesn’t hear any reassurances from the floor below. 

He grabs the kitchen knife stashed under his pillow, fights to get his breathing back under control, and creeps over to the top of the stairs. The couch is only a few feet from the bottom, so the view from the top is good enough that Clint can clearly see what’s going on.

James is lying on the couch. And Natasha is on James, riding him.

The spare duvet James has been using is still folded up neatly under the coffee table where it’s been living during the day and their clothes are strewn across the floor, so there’s nothing to hide the sight of where they come together, or James’ hands supporting Natasha’s hips, or the motion of Natasha’s breasts and her peaked nipples, or James’ equally standing to attention nipples, or...

Natasha spots him first, since she’s facing him with her eyes open wide. She doesn’t stop moving.

The problem is, Clint has to check the locks and run through his security checks. He wants one of them to say that they already have done, so that he doesn’t have to. He wants to crawl back into the warmth of his own bed and sleep. He wants to make a quip about how he thought they got rid of all the Russians, but the words get stuck in his throat and he really does need to do his checks, because he _has_ to.

The compulsion overcomes the awkwardness and he stumbles down the stairs muttering, “Sorry, sorry,” and circling the room, checking the locks on each window and almost tripping over Natasha’s abandoned bra.

At the sound of his first footfall James sits up, lifts Natasha off of him, and grabs Clint’s dressing gown from where it’s slung over the bottom of the banister to cover himself up. Natasha sighs and makes herself comfortable on the couch, nude and perfectly composed.

Clint finishes the windows and does the door, still apologising and trying to ignore the smell of sex and how his boxers don’t do a thing to hide how much he appreciated the sight that he’s pretending he didn’t see. Eventually he comes to a halt, reaching out an unsteady hand to hold onto the breakfast bar as his heart rate slows and the panic recedes.

“Clint, put the knife down,” Natasha says quietly.

He hadn’t realised he was still holding it. It takes him a minute, but he after a few deep breaths he manages to leave it on the table.

Over on the couch the tension leaves James’ frame. He stands up and turns his back to Clint to put the dressing gown on, tying it loosely around his middle, and then sits back down again leaving a gap between himself and Natasha. It doesn’t disguise the fact that he’s still hard, so at least Clint isn’t the only one in that position.

“You’re still having trouble sleeping?” Natasha asks.

Clint averts his eyes and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly with one hand. It’s damp with sweat and the back of his hair appears to be sticking up spectacularly, adding to his embarrassment. Because _of course_ he has to interrupt his oldest and newest – and ridiculously attractive – friends having sex due to his stupid brain having a meltdown _and_ look like a mess whilst doing it.

“Um, yeah.”

“Was there a problem with the bed, James?”

Clint looks back at the couch despite his best intentions and gets to see the Winter Soldier blush. Also, apparently Natasha calls him ‘James’ as well. And she’s having sex with him. Which means Clint should probably have gone with ‘Bucky’.

“He’s injured,” James mutters and Natasha rolls her eyes.

“Oh my god,” Clint complains, exasperation momentarily defeating awkwardness, “I’m not breakable.”

Natasha cuts off any reply James might make by placing her hand on his knee and leans forward to ask Clint, “Do you want to come over here, or do you want me to come upstairs?”

Clint absolutely wants to snuggle on the couch with two exceedingly hot people who have the power to quiet his brain. He just isn’t sure that’s something he can really have, as if that would be asking for too much.

She sees his hesitation, because of course she does, and moves further away from James, making the gap between them person-sized, and raises a single eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Clint manages. “Okay.” He leaves the knife behind and walks towards them, the wooden floorboards cool beneath his feet. “If that’s okay with you, James? Bucky?”

“James is fine.” He takes a breath. “Would it help?”

Clint nods and James raises his arm, tucking it around Clint’s shoulders when he sits down in the space that’s been created for him. It’s the metal arm, but it’s encased in Clint’s soft dressing gown and it’s actually nice to have the weight, something solid, wrapped around him. Natasha tucks herself up against his other side, her cheek partly on his shoulder and partly on James’ hand. Her skin is warm everywhere that she’s pressed against him and Clint feels surrounded in the best way.

Awareness fades out for a time, and then back in to the feel of Natasha’s knee beneath his hand where he’s drawing circles with his thumb, Natasha’s breath on his collarbone, and James’ a furnace on his right with his chin resting gently on top of Clint’s head.

“Back with us?” Natasha covers Clint’s hand with hers and he stills. 

“Yeah.” Clint clears his throat and turns his hand over to lace their fingers together. “Yes. Sorry.”

His awkwardness and most of his embarrassment has been cuddled away, but that just leaves room for guilt to creep in.

“Not your fault,” she tells him. 

James hums in agreement, then adds, sounding guilty himself, “You should have said something. Told me what you needed.”

“Sorry,” Clint says again and Natasha squeezes his hand. “I’m…not good at that.”

“You’re getting better,” Natasha says softly. “You just have to let us take care of you sometimes, okay?”

She presses a kiss to his cheek, then rises up on her knees to kiss James over his head, asking him, “Interested?”

“Yes,” comes the equally soft reply.

Clint, partly annoyed at people literally talking over him and partly at not being able to see, mumbles, “Hey,” in objection.

Natasha leans down to kiss him on the mouth too. That wasn't what Clint meant, but he pushes up into it anyway, ignoring the pull of his stitches and the pressure it puts on his aches in favour of chasing this much, much better sensation. She stops him with a hand on his chest.

“You never keep still,” she says, almost fondly.

“We could make him,” says James from behind him. 

Clint doesn't mean to, but he freezes. If Natasha had been the one to say it then it would’ve been fine, but he doesn't know what James means by that.

“No one’s tying anyone up,” Natasha says, dismissing his worry the second she notices it. She knows that for him ropes, chains, and whatever else are too close to work for play, like Clint knows that Nat will always associate handcuffs with the Red Room.

She looks over at James and the pair of them have a silent conversation before James wraps his arms around Clint, turning them both so that they're sat sideways with James’ back against the arm of the couch and Clint’s pressed against James’ chest. Clint goes willingly and relaxes into the hold, being careful to rest his head on James’ right shoulder in case the join between metal and skin on the other is something that causes a problem. When he turns his face his nose brushes against James’ neck and hair; he smells like Natasha’s fruity shampoo and Clint’s cheap soap.

James gently tucks his left arm under Clint’s, careful not to pull on his bandages or jostle his shoulder, and threads their fingers together, giving Clint an anchor point. The metal fingers are skin-warm and slick, and the realisation that they were inside Natasha not so long ago sends all his remaining blood south.

“You want me to let go, you let go of my hand,” James says, his voice quiet and smooth in Clint’s ear.

“Okay?” Natasha checks and, when he says yes and smiles up at her, she smiles back and runs her fingers through his hair, nails lightly scratching his scalp.

She leans down and kisses him again. 

Clint tries to move closer, the motion ingrained, but this time he can’t go anywhere. James huffs in amusement, then runs his tongue along the shell of Clint’s ear and nibbles on the lobe, making Clint whine into Natasha’s mouth. He can feel James’ dick twitch at the sound where it’s trapped between them.

“Okay?” James echoes Natasha.

Clint is too distracted to answer.

“Clint,” Natasha orders with a grin, “tell the nice man what you do and don’t like.”

“No blood, no bodily fluids in general, no breathplay, no anal today thank you but ask me again sometime,” Clint rattles off, “and god, yes, please keep doing that.”

Clint waits for her to follow that with her own list, but Natasha doesn't say anything, just smiles. And Clint realises that she doesn’t _need_ to say anything because both of them already know her list: no handcuffs, no fire play, don’t take control away from her unless she explicitly offers it to you, and she likes her partners vocal and open to requests.

There’s three people here though. He tilts his head away from James’ mouth to get his attention and says, maybe a little out of breath but he’d never admit it, “Now you.”

“I may have a bit of an oral fixation,” James says, which is something that Clint is more than happy to hear. He squeezes his fingers around Clint’s and tucks his face into the crook of Clint’s neck. “No verbal abuse or humiliation and don’t touch where the arm joins my shoulder please.”

“He says ‘please’,” Clint stage-whispers to Natasha in delight.

“I know,” Natasha says with a smug little smile. 

“You wanna beg me for something?”

He feels James’ smile against his neck.

“Please can I take your hearing aid out?” James kisses the skin beneath his lips. “Just the one.”

“Yeah,” Clint breathes out. There’s some shuffling as James reaches around with his right hand and tosses the hearing aid onto the coffee table in Clint’s line of sight, before he re-establishes his hold on Clint and goes to town on his ear.

Natasha taps Clint on the knee and he lifts up a little to help her without even thinking about it as she tugs his boxers off. As she nudges his legs apart a little, James, his legs either side of Clint’s, follows to keep his body bracketing Clint’s. Both of them are careful of the bandages covering the bullet wound in his thigh and his colourful bruises. It’s too gentle, not what he’s used to, and Clint asks Natasha to press on a bruise, just one, to make it feel real. Instead she kisses the one on his hipbone. Then, when Clint is positioned to her satisfaction, James crosses his legs over Clint’s just below Clint’s knees, pinning Clint’s calves down with his own. 

Clint doesn’t panic. He’s used to being at the mercy of people bigger and stronger than him, even if it’s not usually so comfy. He still can’t resist the urge to test his range of movement and finds that he can work those butt muscles, but otherwise he’s pretty much stuck.

“Still okay?” Natasha checks, watching him.

“Yeah,” says Clint again, because even though Natasha is the best at reading people she likes verbal confirmation. Partly because she enjoys seeing people struggling to be coherent during sex; evidence of her affecting someone that much. 

She leans forward and wraps her hand around his cock.

“Still okay?”

“Yes,” Clint chokes out and James laughs right in his ear.

She starts to move, slow upwards strokes from base to tip, then ducks her head and licks across his slit before taking the head into her mouth and working the rest of him with her hand.

He feels like his whole body is vibrating with the need to move, but it can’t and it makes him intensely aware of every single place he’s touching James and Natasha, is held by them, riding the edge of oversensitivity. His scrabbling right hand latches onto a fistful of dressing gown - the only thing in reach - and his left clamps down on James’, locking their fingers together. He’s babbling, words spilling out his mouth, and he has no idea what he’s saying and he couldn’t care less. He’s never been self-conscious about being vocal during sex; there’s nothing wrong with giving good feedback.

“Here,” James says, “it’s okay, we’ve got you.” 

He presses a damp kiss behind Clint’s ear and tightens his hold, arms squeezing just that bit more and legs pressing down against Clint’s just that bit more. And Natasha cups his balls with her free hand, swallows around him, and he’s gone.

The pair of them wait until he’s stopped trembling; James holding on, his dick still hard against Clint’s back, and Natasha tracing patterns on his stomach and legs as the aftershocks die down.

“Okay?” she says, amused.

Clint nods and hums his approval.

James slides out from behind him, slotting a cushion in his place and carefully lowering Clint to rest propped up against that and the arm of the sofa. He removes the dressing gown and drops it on the floor with all of the other discarded clothing, apparently over being self-conscious around Clint now, which Clint really, really appreciates. James’ muscles, his blush, his leaking cock; it’s a damn good view.

Then he turns to Natasha and asks, ever so nicely, “Please?”

She leans back to look at him, her tongue darting out to wet her bottom lip, drawing the moment out. She starts circling her left nipple with a finger and pushes her other hand between her legs to grind against.

James shivers, hands clenched into fists, then stills, letting her stare.

If Clint had the refractory period of his teenage years he’d be hard again. 

Natasha nods.

Faster than Clint can really follow right now, James is at the other end of the couch; turning Natasha around, spreading her legs with his hands on the inside of her thighs, dipping his head, and going down on her. Natasha’s head drops back onto Clint’s stomach, her back arched and hands grasping for the edge of the sofa cushions as something to hold onto. 

Feeling drowsy and muscle-loose, Clint combs his fingers through her hair, smoothing it back so he can watch her face. It’s hard to see when he’s the one doing the work and the position they’re in now gives him a whole new perspective. 

He gets to see her lips parted, spit-shiny, as lovely little noises spill out from the back of her throat. 

The flush spreading from the top of her chest up her neck and across her cheeks. 

Her watching him back, pupils blown.

He blinks slowly.

“You. You can. Go to sleep,” Natasha manages to say.

“Not gonna,” Clint mumbles.

But he does.

 

“So,” says Kate, holding two arrows loosely in one hand by their fletching. “Who’d you have a good time with last night? Because you’re way too happy for a Sunday morning.”

“Focus, Hawkeye.”

James might have banned Clint from using a bow until his shoulder finishes healing, but there's nothing stopping him from teaching Kate a few tricks in the meantime. So they’re up on the roof using Simone’s broken satellite dish for target practise, since Clint already ruined it and Simone’s unlikely to come back to yell at them for sticking a few more arrows in it.

“You’ve not been going out, so probably someone in the building,” Kate muses.

“I go out.” 

He did. He went all the way to the shop on the corner to get milk. And then when he got back James shouted at him for not taking it easy and threatened to shove his crutch where the sun don’t shine whilst Natasha looked on in amusement. At which point Clint decided, really, who needs milk anyway.

Lucky, lounging at Clint’s feet, raises his head at ‘out’ thinking that it might mean a walk, then realises no one is going anywhere and settles back down again with a doggy sigh.

“Going in order of proximity,” Kate continues, talking over him, “Natasha’s stuff is all over your apartment, but she wouldn't be dumb enough to get involved with you again -”

“Hey,” Clint objects on principal.

“-and Barnes has been sleeping on your couch for, what, six weeks now? But I’ve never known you to be into guys -”

Clint rolls his eyes. “I spent my teenage years with the carnival, Katie-Kate.”

Kate pauses, then rallies with the classic, “Yes, but -”

“We had guys and guys, and girls and girls. We had a bearded lady and no one asked what she had between her legs, she was just Debra.”

“But,” Kate says, pointing the arrows at him, “that doesn’t mean that _you_ -”

“I slept with Debra.”

It’s quiet for a moment in which Kate just stares at him. 

Then she tilts her face up to the sky, closes her eyes, and says, “Remember how I had that Young Avengers thing where I thought I was straight, but God Bless America? And then I slept with America? This would have been a really good talk to have when I was _having a sexual crisis_ , Clint.”

He shrugs, which he keeps forgetting is a painfully bad idea until the next time he does it. 

“You worked it out.”

Kate turns back to the satellite dish, grumbling. “Fine. Are you sleeping with Barnes then?”

“Tell you what. You make the shot and I’ll tell you.”

He knows that she’ll get it eventually anyway - both the shot and the gossip - but a little motivation never hurt. Sure enough, not ten minutes later she hits the satellite dish with two arrows at once at just the right angle that they ricochet off in opposite directions. Each of them hits the centre ring of two other targets, one to the left and one to the right of the dish stuck to the low wall surrounding the rooftop.

Kate whoops in success and demands her winnings.

“Yes,” he confirms, “ _and_ Natasha.”

“Wow,” Kate says, wide-eyed, and reaches for another two arrows. “The Avengers: more complicated than the carnival.”

The thing is, he goes back to his apartment and Natasha is on his couch, sharpening the kitchen knives and watching some fashion show thing, and James is at the stove cooking pasta, wearing Clint’s dressing gown over a bare chest and soft jeans, and it’s just - nice. 

Clint swipes a piece of garlic bread from where it’s cooling, narrowly missing James’ attempt to smack his wrist with the sauce spoon that spatters tomato sauce across the counter top, and flops onto the couch next to Natasha. She dumps her feet into his lap, avoiding the healing bullet wound in his thigh that’s still kind of sore, and Clint obediently picks one up and starts massaging the sole with his thumbs.

“You slept better last night,” she says, her focus on the blade of a knife. It isn’t a question. 

“Once we made it to an actual bed.”

Natasha prods him in the stomach with her toes and he smiles.

“Yeah,” he says. “Better. I’m getting there.”


End file.
